Sure, I'll try and make that change soon. As you said, The existing recipe was already using that pattern so I tried to just fit in cleanly with what was already there rather than rewriting, but if removing those variables and using node attributes directly in the template is more in line with Cookbook best practices, then I will happily change the code.

Is there any documentation supporting this and/or other Cookbook design best practices, or is this just your thought based on DRY principles? What you say makes sense and I tend to trust Opscode folks when it comes to Chef recommendations, but as a relative Chef newcomer if there's anything more to learn here rather than just making the changes, I'd love to see it.